“Oh, a wooden door, big, round, about this size.” He waved his wings around. “An entire army of Hobgoblins disappeared through it. It can’t have just evaporated.”
He paused.
Snigg was about to say something when the bat suddenly put his wing to his mouth. Spellbound, Primus held his head against the hill and listened.
He could hear music coming from somewhere in the innermost depths of the earth. But he could hear something else, too. A kind of hissing sound.
Primus scrunched his nose up and pondered. What on Earth could it be? – he wondered. He had never heard a noise like it.
Snigg, for his part, sat there immobile, holding his breath. However, that had less to do with the fact that Primus still had a wing over his mouth, and more to do with the fact that he had spotted something disturbing. For while the bat was still occupied with straining his ears, Snigg was looking up, wide-eyed, into the night sky. He was quite sure that something was heading for them out of the darkness.
“Mmmmfffff,” Snigg gurgled through the wing.
“Be quiet. I can’t hear otherwise,” Primus growled. He strained his ears again.
“Mmmmmmmmmfffffff, mmmmmmmmmmhhhh,” Snigg replied even more loudly, as the flying Something started to take shape.
“What’s wrong with you now?” Primus said angrily, removing his wing from Snigg’s mouth. “Can’t you just put a sock in it?”
The pumpkin looked at Primus, his eyes wide. Panting, he struggled to find the right words, then yelled at him: “AIR STRIKE!! WITCH TOP RIGHT!!!”
At that very moment, a fly-swatter swooshed through the air, aiming straight for Primus. He dodged it just in time – but it smashed straight into Snigg’s face.
Primus was poleaxed. He looked up at the sky and saw a young witch in a long blue frock. She was sitting on a rattly motorised old broom with bicycle handlebars, and was readying herself for the second attack. Before he and Snigg even had time to think, the witch made a second lunge with her fly-swatter. She tore between the pumpkin and the bat, scattering them aside. The panicky pumpkin bounced through the grass towards the Lunar Lake, trying to find somewhere to hide. But the witch had clearly set her sights on the bat. The fly-swatter whizzed through the air and missed its target for the second time. Primus fled.
With top hat bobbing, he zig-zagged through the air. Left and right. Up and down and at breakneck speed over the dusky hills. But the witch wasn’t giving up, and pursued him ceaselessly on her rattly broomstick. She had thrown back her head and her eyes were flashing victoriously behind her old racing driver glasses. She was wearing a pilot’s cap, and clutched her broomstick with hands clad in ladies’ gloves. Primus fled across the Snail Creek and raced at full pelt above the tall reeds, the witch hot on his heels, so that the ends of the reeds were whipped through the air.
Primus, however, was starting to enjoy the chase. He turned somersaults in the air and whizzed above the witch’s head. The witch gave a screech, turned her broom round and soon overtook him again. Primus zoomed back and forth over the Snail Creek and then headed for the wooden bridge. The witch was now gaining on him again. Once he had the bridge over the Snail Creek right in front of him, he turned deftly downwards and shot under the bridge. Cursing, the witch clattered into the railings.
However, Primus knew he wasn’t going to shake her off so easily. He also knew that he would eventually run out of puff. The only solution, he decided, was the Dark Forest with all its obstacles. He immediately started to curve around, above Thistleway, and hurtled towards the trees. The witch had recovered and was once again in hot pursuit, brandishing her fly-swatter. Primus soon realised that he wasn’t the only one who could find his way through the forest blindfolded. They both sped up even more. Over roots and through thickets, left and right past the gnarled trees, under the signpost, always heading northwards. The leaves on the forest floor swirled up as the broomstick shot above them, and they left a stinking vapour trail in their wake, thanks to the endless puffball mushrooms on their flight path.
All of a sudden, Primus shot out of the forest. In the bright starlight, Burdock Village emerged from the darkness as he headed for it, keeping just above the farmland. Branches were shattered as the witch came steaming out of the forest. She was spitting out bits of branch and pulling leaves off her glasses as she flew. By now, Primus was beginning to wonder if he would ever rid himself of this pest. In despair, he flew above the rooftops, trying to think of a solution. And then: ta-da! As he neared the church steeple, it suddenly came to him. It might just work, he thought to himself. If he was really lucky.
Before he could turn his plan into action, though, he had to rouse the villagers. He stormed down into the streets, giving off his all-too-familiar cry. With the witch on his tail, he made an even louder noise than usual, as she evidently felt he was mocking her with his batty noises and tried to outdo him with the tin horn on her handlebars.
They took the sharp bends round the ends of the houses, over several hay wagons, between endless washing lines with their bedsheets, socks and underwear. Before long, lights started to appear at the windows and the villagers started to emerge from their houses, clad in pyjamas and nightdresses, as they always did when he visited them. Open mouthed, they watched the chase.
“Look!” one of them shouted. “There are two of them now! The Shadow’s got reinforcements!”
There was no time to waste. Primus headed for the church steeple, along with a collection of Burdockians. He passed the lantern in the market place, spiralled up to the steeple, and made a couple of circles around the clock. He was just hoping that the villagers hadn’t meanwhile removed the snow shovel. Then, though, he spotted the rope and the bent handle of the shovel. Things were becoming critical. Primus was becoming weaker, and the witch was still gaining on him. Just a bit higher and once more around the steeple – she had almost caught up with him now.
Exhausted, Primus looked desperately at her as she triumphantly drew back her fly-swatter. But then it happened: the Burdockians engaged their secret weapon. One of the villagers released the rope which held the shovel taut – and the shovel shot through the darkness like a catapult. It whizzed above Primus, who just managed to duck. The witch, however, was less fortunate.
There came an ear-splitting shriek as the shovel hit her with full force and whacked her away over the rooftops and into the forest.
As her shrieks died away, the cheers of the villagers grew louder. They applauded in the streets and lit the steeple bells to celebrate. Their defence mechanism had worked. Albeit not on Primus, its intended victim.
Said intended victim landed, panting, on a rooftop in the shadow of the steeple. He paused for a few minutes to catch his breath then turned, groaning, onto his back. He stretched out his wings and looked up at the sky.
“What kind of crazy creature was that?” he moaned. “I’ve never seen her before. But you have to hand it to her: she can certainly fly.”
He remained prostrate on the roof for a while, then sat up. With one wing, he picked up his top hat, and with the other, he mopped his brow. “If I weren’t so done in, I’d take the opportunity to take a couple of pieces of cake home with me. Maybe next time.”
He looked across the rooftops. It was quite a long way back to the tower. However, he was pretty sure nothing else bad would happen that night. He could feel a pleasantly cool southerly breeze, and he was relieved to see a few small clouds in the sky.
“Aha,” he murmured. “One more problem sorted, or so it would seem.”
With that, he headed homewards.
Swaying slightly and visibly exhausted, Primus flitted through the Dark Forest until he finally saw his tower rising up in the distance. Snigg was sitting on the garden wall, waiting anxiously.
“Just don’t ask,” Primus said as he flew past Snigg. “I’m shattered. I’ll tell you about it tomorrow.”
As Primus flew through the window